


Promise Not to Wake Me

by HotCrossPigeon



Series: Stories to brighten up your day [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bickering, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Humor, Forehead Kisses, Humor, Humour, M/M, Old Married Couple, Post-Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sleeping companions, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotCrossPigeon/pseuds/HotCrossPigeon
Summary: Aziraphale finds himself with a sleeping companion, much to his surprise.Crowley is also surprised. And completely mortified.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Stories to brighten up your day [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771381
Comments: 50
Kudos: 359





	Promise Not to Wake Me

**Author's Note:**

> This started life as a 70 word ficlet, hope you like it :)
> 
> Also, it’s been sitting in my drafts for so long that it was about to get deleted (many an unfinished story has been lost this way) so... here you go, I guess!

Aziraphale, abruptly, found himself with a lapful of sleeping demon.

He startled so badly that the book he had been reading catapulted across the room, and only a quick thinking snap of his manicured fingers saved the poor tome from certain demise. It now rested on a pillow, pages splayed.

He looked down to see Crowley sprawled out with his head on the angel’s lap, the rest of him draped artlessly over the sofa, feet dangling off the arm. At first, the angel had been understandably surprised. And then a few moments later, as he realised Crowley’s nose was wedged perilously close to his groin, he was, of course, utterly scandalised.

... Well, he was sure that he _ought_ to have been anyway, and that was more or less the same thing.

Ahem.

And then after that, when the first sleepy fidget caused Crowley to turn his head into the velvet of his waistcoat with a content smile, Aziraphale admitted to being just a little bit pleased by this sudden turn of events.

Oh dear. This was most inconvenient. Lovely, true, but terribly inconvenient. Crowley would no doubt be mortified by his current position, that was, if the attempted hand-holding of a few weeks ago was anything to go by. The demon had gone a very interesting shade of red and at the very first opportunity, had scarpered. Aziraphale hadn’t mustered up the courage to try anything since, and now here was that very same demon taking a nap on his lap, happy as Larry.

Aziraphale put a hand on the demon’s shoulder gingerly, having decided that the best course of action would be to wake Crowley now before anything else happened without his conscious consent.

“Dear?” Aziraphale cajoled, gently. “Crowley. Yes, ah, _hello_. Would you mind waking up, please?”

Crowley snored and buried his face into the angel’s thigh.

Oh. That was - _well_ , that was very nice indeed, but they ought to put a stop to that sort of thing, hadn’t they? He was sure Crowley would agree once he woke up.

“Crowley? Come now, you’re most underfoot. Er. Over lap. Oh, semantics. Listen here, I would very much like to get back to my book. I say! Wake _up.”_

Aziraphale shook him so hard that his head flopped about like a badly stuffed children’s toy.

Crowley didn’t wake, Aziraphale suspected that nothing short of the apocalypse would raise him from his slumber. Or perhaps, if he sensed that Aziraphale was in trouble, that usually did the trick. Though the angel had no desire to get entangled in a perilous situation at the moment, he was quite comfortable where he was. He sighed. Crowley was a notoriously deep sleeper, there weren’t many beings who could nap through an entire century after all.

“Oh, it’s no use,” Aziraphale muttered, “you’re completely dead to the world, aren’t you?” Crowley’s response was to lie there and smack his lips a little. “Why I could... I could say anything I liked, couldn’t I? And you wouldn’t know of it. I could...” he touched Crowley’s face, delicately, “I could tell you all sorts of things. Goodness. You do look rather stunning in repose.”

And he did, all of those sharp angles softened under the mantle of sleep. The demon’s hair flopped messily over his forehead, and his eyelashes were so much more prominent against the pale skin, a soft sweep as dark as his wings. Oh, and he had freckles. Lovely, charming freckles all along the bridge of his nose. 

Aziraphale knew all of these things, he knew Crowley’s face so very well. He knew it intimately, one might say. However, when Crowley was awake, the angel rarely had the chance to appreciate the features fully. Especially up close, like this. Crowley was either constantly moving about the place, or else he was distracting Aziraphale with petty arguments, witty anecdotes, and awfully dirty jokes.

It wasn’t often that the demon relaxed. Oh, but he was utterly captivating when he did. Aziraphale could have admired him forever, eager eyes cataloguing the angle of the nose, the thin lips, the pointed chin.

But he knew that Crowley would be thoroughly miffed with him for doing so.

He took a breath, preparing to use a miracle to wake the demon if he had to, “I really _must_ insist upon - oh, no, no! _Crowley!_ ”

Crowley was drooling.

“You _beast_ ,” Aziraphale exclaimed, immediately pulling out his handkerchief and wedging it under Crowley’s cheek, where the offending drool was making its way towards Aziraphale’s best trousers. “Well, _really_. The things I put up with,” he murmured, using the corner that wasn’t pinned between the demon’s head and his own thigh, to dab at the offending saliva.

“S’too bright,” Crowley mumbled, turning into the angel’s plump tummy. Aziraphale miracled a soft periwinkle blue sleeping mask and positioned it gently over Crowley’s eyes and the back of his head.

“There now, that’s better, hmm?”

The demon let out out a hideously loud snore in gratitude.

Aziraphale tutted, quietly, lest he wake up the fiend. Ah, that was - of _course_ \- he did want Crowley to wake up, it was just that - he didn’t wish to be _rude_ about it.

Yes.

There was a certain etiquette to waking your demonic counterpart of six millennia, he was sure. One had to do these things properly.

“S’tooloud,” grumbled the sleeping dragon.

“Yes, yes, all right. My, but you are a very demanding sleeping companion. I have half a mind to miracle you back to your wretched flat, that’ll teach you...” Aziraphale said, having absolutely no intention of doing so.

Crowley’s flat was awfully cold. And sparse. It was much cosier here.

“One moment, my dear. Let’s get you comfortable, shall we? Seeing as you seem adamant upon staying.” Aziraphale miracled a pair of obscenely fluffy earmuffs and fit them snugly over Crowley’s ears, sweeping the hair back slightly to accommodate them. “Oh, you would have the audacity to look adorable, wouldn’t you?” he murmured fondly.

Aziraphale miracled the poor book, that had been tossed so inelegantly aside in favour of the demon now nestled in his lap, back into his hand. He was intent upon finishing it, even with his new sleeping companion getting in the way a bit. He somehow managed to balance them both.

And so, the angel and demon passed the night cuddled together. Aziraphale confessed, in the sanctuary of his own mind, that it was a perfectly agreeable way to spend one’s time. Really quite lovely.

At some point Crowley had got tangled up in the eye mask, which Aziraphale carefully removed and placed aside. Then the demon had slapped off the earmuffs with disdain, deeming them ‘too tickly’. He had snuggled deeper into the angel’s warmth, nose squished against the velvet waistcoat where presumably, he felt the most comfortable.

Aziraphale’s hand had drifted into that fiery red hair at some point, to stroke at the silky strands, humbled that he could witness Crowley in such a state. He was so content that he didn’t notice when the lump in his lap suddenly tensed up.

“ _Aziraphale._ ”

“Hmm?” he murmured, absently.

“Are you... _petting_ me?”

“Mmm.”

There was a pause. “Maybe I should have asked, _why_ are you petting me?”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, finally looking up from his book, and realising that, oh dear, Crowley was awake and looking rather disgruntled, “it, ah... it seemed the thing to do.”

Crowley sprung out of his lap then, all spit and vinegar, like a hissing tomcat.

“And _what_ ,” spat the demon with, Aziraphale thought, far too much vitriol for it being entirely his fault, “the _buggering hell_ am I doing here?!”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, flustered at the sudden change. It was quite startling, going from having a sweet sleepy lapful of warmth, to being accused of petting by a spitting demon who was now wide awake, all jagged pointy barbed bits, prowling a line around the sofa.

“Did you _kidnap_ me?!”

Aziraphale straightened his back at the accusation, standing up. “Kidnap you? Oh, _please_. Have you taken _complete_ leave of your senses? Why, I never.”

“Well,” said the demon, wild-eyed and losing steam, probably because he’d just realised how ridiculous that had sounded, “well - I wasn’t here when I fell asleep, was I? And now I’m here!”

Aziraphale huffed. “How very perceptive of you to notice.”

Crowley threw his hands up and growled in response. “ _What_. _Happened_.”

“I was sitting here,” explained Aziraphale, “minding my own business,” he added pointedly, “when suddenly you transported yourself into my lap. It was quite the surprise, I don’t mind telling you. I did try to wake you, but you were having none of it I’m afraid, and so, after a few hours, I acclimatised. Hence the ah, petting. Which I am very sorry about, I shouldn’t have assumed that I could touch you. But you were getting rather cuddly, and more than a little restless, and you kept nuzzling at my - ah, what I mean to say is, that the petting helped to calm you considerably.”

Crowley latched onto the only part of that he seemed to be able to cope with, squinting his eyes shut and howling, “ _Hours?!_ ”

Aziraphale graciously said nothing more about the nuzzling, though he was rather focused on Crowley’s slightly pink nose. “Yes.”

“How _many_ hours?”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, “Let’s see now. You appeared at around eleven, I believe. And it’s, ah,” he consulted his pocket watch, “half past four in the morning now, so that would be, by my calculations... all night...?”

The demon seemed to be gasping a fair bit now, wetly. He didn’t seem to be taking this very well at all. Aziraphale stepped forward, and Crowley stepped back away from him. Which did something awfully painful to Aziraphale’s insides. “Wot. _What_.”

“As I said,” reiterated the angel, “you must have accidentally transported yourself here -”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I _didn’t_.”

“I think you’ll find that you did, Crowley. All evidence points to it.”

“I _DIDN’T._ Shut up!”

Aziraphale frowned, because it was rather obvious at this point that Crowley _bloody well did_ , actually, and he was just being a pigheaded buffoon. “Oh - oh, of _course_ , yes, my mistake! Perhaps you were dropped off by a stork, hmm? Or - or spat out by a black hole! Or even - _yes_ \- even _kidnapped_ and then deposited here, in the bookshop, in some nefarious hellish scheme?”

Crowley bared his teeth. “I’m going home.”

“Oh, don’t,” Aziraphale insisted grumpily, “You might as well stay, now that you’ve already broken the rules.”

“Nah, it’s...” he made a face, lips scrunching up.

He looked embarrassed, guilty. Aziraphale gentled at the sight. Oh dear, that wouldn’t do at all. He hadn’t meant for the demon to feel unwelcome here. He probably shouldn’t have raised his voice quite so much, but Crowley did have a tendency to ruffle his feathers.

Crowley was grouching, already shuttering himself off, “Wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You’ve already imposed,” Aziraphale replied, a little desperately.

Crowley scowled a bit, flexing his snakey bare feet on the wooden floor. “Clearly.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean - I meant, I suppose, at this juncture, I really don’t mind the imposition.”

Crowley was glaring at his own toes. “S’all right. I’ll get out of your hair, angel.”

Aziraphale wrung his hands, wondering how on Earth he could convince Crowley to stay. “Oh, must you be so very _stubborn?_ I realise that you’re a little surprised at this sudden turn of events, and that’s understandable, but you really ought to think logically. If you go now, you’ll just end up back here, having miracled yourself in your sleep again. And this time it might be worse!”

Crowley scoffed, gesticulating wildly, “Worse? Worse than _this?_ Worse than apparently magicking myself, in my pyjamas, right into your - your -”

“My lap?” offered Aziraphale, helpfully.

“Crngk!” the demon buried his face in his hands. “Sssstop ssaying that, why would I - I wasn’t in your lap!”

Aziraphale looked at him. “My dear,” he said calmly, “I think I would know.”

Crowley rubbed his hands up his cheeks and into his hair and pulled, hissing as if physically in pain.

“Now, Crowley. I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about. I don’t mind all this, truly - in fact, after the initial shock, I must admit I found your presence to be rather soothing.”

Oh dear, no that wasn’t working, Crowley looked ready to combust. Time to change tack.

“In any case, you may very well end up back here, and well, I - I may be holding a hot beverage when you suddenly appear on my lap! And then, I needn’t tell you, that it would be utterly disastrous. You’d be _scalded_. And just think of the state of my poor trousers if I were to spill cocoa on them! No, no. It’s much safer for you to stay here.”

Crowley wasn’t buying it. He was completely still in the same way a prey animal might be just before they bolted.

“Preemptively,” added the angel, “so to speak.”

“Maybe it was _you_ ,” the demon eventually said, eyes narrowing, “maybe _you_ miracled _me_ into your lap! Did you think about that?”

“Oh, don’t be absurd,” scoffed Aziraphale. But it was, in fact, entirely possible. He had missed the demon something terrible. Oh dear, best not think on that too much, there’s a good fellow. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter exactly who is to blame, merely that it may very well happen again and we ought to make plans to deal with it.”

“Bet it was you, though,” grumbled the demon, “you were the one who was _awake_. What were you even doing, anyway? Just - just _stroking_ me, all night?”

Aziraphale swallowed, his lip wobbled a bit as it tried to come up with a plausible explanation. It all sounded rather sordid now that he thought about it. “I wasn’t - I was - I - I was _reading my book_. Actually, if you must know. So, there.”

“Yeah? With your hand in my hair?”

“Oh, don’t you try and turn this around on me!”

“You were the one insisting it was _my_ fault! I’ve never done miracles in my sleep before, angel, don’t you think it’s more likely that _you missed me_ and miracled me here?!”

“It might very well have been me!” snapped the angel. And then put a hand over his mouth.

Oh, _bugger_.

Crowley’s eyes went wide as yellow moons.

They looked at each other, barely even daring to breathe.

“Or - or it could have been merely a manifestation of your dreams,” the angel hastened to add, “I, er, who’s to say? It - it could have happened for any number of reasons.”

“So it was... just an accident?” offered Crowley, a tentative olive branch between them.

Aziraphale grabbed at it with both hands, “Precisely!” he said, “yes! Just so.”  
  


  
Crowley’s shoulders sloped in sadness, “Which means it wasn’t a desire to see each other at all, unconscious or otherwise. It was a mistake.”

“A _lovely_ mistake,” amended Aziraphale, “a glorious, fortuitous, wonderful mistake.”

Crowley made a face, a long fingered hand coming up to knead at his eyes. “Okay. Okay. Let’s just... pretend this never happened. I’ll go back to my flat, you go back to your book, and we’ll never speak of this again. Sound good?”

No, that sounded positively awful actually. Aziraphale didn’t want to forget, or pretend. Not anymore.

“Stay,” said Aziraphale, his voice soft. He never directly asked the demon for anything, always merely remarking upon something in such a way that maybe Crowley would get the hint. But he couldn’t let him leave like this, “please stay.”

Crowley’s face did something complicated. His spine went all wiggly.

“You don’t have to - that is, you don’t have to rest upon my person, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable - not that I, well, ahem, that is, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.” He gestured to the chesterfield, fingers trembling. “The sofa is perfectly serviceable, or I could miracle a bedroom upstairs, no trouble at all, if that would be to your liking?”

Crowley stood there and stared at the angel, as if he’d gone completely loopy.

Aziraphale’s eyes skittered nervously to the side. “Ah, just, it was nice to have a little company,” he admitted. “Not to worry, old chap. I... I understand. I’m terribly sorry to have overstepped your boundaries, I should have tried harder to wake you. It shan’t happen again. Please forgive me.”

There was a small silence. Aziraphale didn’t dare to look up, afraid he’d ruined everything. There was an odd rustle of sliding fabric. He braved a glance.  
  
  


Oh.

Crowley had grabbed the blanket strewn haphazardly across the back of the sofa, and wrapped himself up tightly with it, grumbling under his breath.

“Well go on,” the demon groused, a hot flare of red streaking over the bridge of his nose and cheeks, “siddown then.”

“Really?” said Aziraphale, surprised. A hopeful smile pulled at his lips, the skin under his eyes crinkling.

“You twisted my arm,” he muttered, mildly. But there was something there, something brittle.

Aziraphale sat gingerly on the sofa, and Crowley closed his eyes, flopping down to sit next to him with a good deal of mortification.

They were rigid, not breathing, not moving. Still as two terribly embarrassed statues.

Crowley sounded upset, “Knew it. Knew this was a stupid idea -”

Aziraphale didn’t know what overcame him in that moment, but he took hold of the demon’s shoulder, gently as could be. “You can hardly sleep sitting upright like that.”

“Can too.”

“Well, yes, but... do you want to?”  
  


  
Crowley slouched a little, he still seemed very tired. Which would account for his earlier grouchiness, the demon never did well when startled out of a nap. “No. But you can’t honestly tell me you want me to sleep in your lap?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Aziraphale, kindly, “it worked out perfectly well the first time. Ah, up to a certain point, that is.”

The demon relaxed a little, limbs loosening. He closed his eyes, as if it were too much to acknowledge what was happening, and finally, carefully, settled down against the cushions.

“My dear,” started Aziraphale, twiddling his thumbs. “I think I might have an explanation for what happened.”

Crowley gave him a side eyed glare, wearily, “Wassat then.”

“Well,” said the angel, his voice quiet, “I think it’s fairly obvious that we both missed one another.”

“Ffff. Bit of a stretch,” mumbled the demon, “but I’ll allow it.”

“I believe my magic was reaching for you, and - and it found you reaching back.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Wot, and the combined forces of our celestial powers -” here, he waggled his fingers to indicate said powers, poking them out of the shelter of his wrapped blanket, “- thought the best solution was to dump me, unceremoniously, into your lap?”

“Yes,” breathed the angel, eyes soft and imploring, “I think that’s _exactly_ what happened. Our powers decided to intervene, subconsciously, on our behalf.”

Crowley pouted a bit, considering the idea. “Eh. Doesn’t sound _entirely_ improbable.”

The sofa creaked under them, as they adjusted. The blanket slipped off of Crowley’s shoulder and fell onto Aziraphale’s knee.

“I’m so glad,” whispered Aziraphale. He didn’t say what for, but hoped the demon would understand.

Crowley didn’t respond, but he sat for a moment or two, foot tapping agitatedly, before muttering, “Oh, _sod it._ ”

Then the demon manoeuvred his body until his head was in the angel’s lap, legs curled up, arms folded defensively. He still held himself stiffly, though, nowhere near as sleepy and relaxed as he had been before. A veritable lump of nerves.

It was rather like being chosen by a wild cat. Aziraphale felt _honoured_.

So much so, that he felt he needed Crowley to know it. He leant over and laid the softest of kisses on the demon’s forehead, right between the furrowed bristles of his eyebrows. Just a small thing, but it felt momentous. Felt perfect. Aziraphale drew back, pink-cheeked and wet-eyed.

There, that ought to do the trick.

Crowley’s pupils expanded, almost eclipsing the yellow. Gosh, look at that. “What the bloody hell was _that_ for?” he squeaked, but there was nothing but wonder in his voice.

“Oh, just... a bestowment of pleasant dreams,” answered Aziraphale, which was, he admitted to himself, a terrible fib. One of his hands came up to ever so carefully rest in the demon’s hair. Things were shifting between them, clicking into place. And oh, it was wonderful. “Is this all right?”

Crowley shrugged as if he didn’t care, but he slowly and deliberately leaned into the touch. Bit by bit, his tense muscles relaxed under the angel’s gentle caress.

Aziraphale looked down at him with something too soft and delicate to name.

_What a lucky being I am,_ he thought to himself.

Crowley snorted, dispelling some of the tension with an easy grin. “Right, well, don’t need a kiss for pleasant dreams, do I? I’m in your bloody lap. I think I’m dreaming already.”

Aziraphale smiled, a terribly pleased thing, that threatened to burst into something large and unbecoming of an angel. “Off you pop, then. Into the land of nod with you.”

“You just gonna watch me?” Crowley mumbled, sleepily.

“Good _Heavens_ , of course not.” Aziraphale patted a pile of books. “I have much better things to do than ogle you while you snore _._ ”

“Don’t snore.”

“My dear, I’m afraid you do.”

“ _Don’t_.”

“Crowley -”

“S’not snoring, it’s _growling_.”

“Ah. My mistake. Regardless, I assure you I’ll be perfectly occupied, thank you.”

“Mmff…”

Crowley closed his eyes, and for the rest of the night, Aziraphale didn’t open a single book.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
